Media Server Reviews

User Interface
The Vudu onscreen interface is, in a word, beautiful. It's extremely colorful with bold and easily readable menus. Navigation is straightforward, and you don't need a tutorial to navigate through the various layers.

The main menu contains six options—Most Watched, New on Vudu, My Vudu, Explore Catalog, Vudu Labs, Info & Settings. Explore Catalog provides additional options for choosing a movie such as Explore Genres, Explore HD, Explore TV, After Dark (adult content), Search by Actor or Director, and Search by Title. My Vudu is the location for the films you've purchased or rented and have not watched. To gain access to the After Dark catalog, you have to activate that feature in your account on the Vudu website.

When scrolling through movies, you see a brief synopsis with some additional details such as the studio and run time. To see the cast and director, you have to select the movie, which takes you to the purchase/rent screen. Movies are represented by their promotional posters, making them easy to identify. And it just makes the whole menu appear more vibrant and inviting.

Once you find a movie you want, click on Purchase or Rent with the remote. Next, you select whether you want the SD, HD, or HDX version. (Some movies are only rentals, others are purchase, and still others are both depending on the studio and title.) Once a movie starts, you have the same controls as a DVD/Blu-ray player—play, pause, stop, and fast-forward/reverse.

You'll never confuse the Vudu remote with any of your other remotes due to its smaller size, unusual shape, and economy of controls. The remote is uniquely contoured, resembling a water drop, and it fits securely in your hand. My hands are small and it was a comfortable fit for me.

Interestingly, the remote communicates with the Vudu box via RF (radio frequency), not IR (infrared). This is great if you want to hide the box inside an equipment rack or utility closet, but it also means you can't use the box with an IR-based universal remote unless you get the optional IR sensor for an extra $40.

You mostly use the remote's clickable vertical scroll wheel for navigation and selection. During playback of a movie, you might use one of the five other buttons to pause or rewind. A progress bar appears at the bottom of the screen when any of these controls are engaged. You can rewind and fast-forward through the movie quickly or slowly, depending on how fast you spin the scroll wheel. If you leave a movie, it automatically resumes right where you left off. Getting used to the remote takes no time at all, and you'll wish all remotes were so simple.